Notes from a car trip

WINEDALE — Just got back to the country place in Washington County after a 10-day car trip. Haven’t even unpacked yet and I’m flipping though my notebook, to see if I wrote down anything I’d like to tell you about:

Here’s something. In Santa Fe (New Mexico, that is) I was talking to a fellow in the lobby of the Eldorado Hotel. This was on a fine day of weather. Low for the previous night had been in the 40s and snow was on the mountaintops north of town.

The fellow said yeah, the weather was great but he didn’t like Santa Fe any longer because it had changed. Said he came there with his bride 30 years ago and loved the city, but it’s different now. It’s all grown up and spread out, and two or three of the places they enjoyed aren’t there now and even the food in restaurants is different.

I wonder how many dozen times I’ve heard that, not just about Santa Fe but other cities as well. Travelers find places in the world that they love, and they want them to stay the same always, and resent that they change.

I’ve caught myself doing that. Example, I used to love crossing the Rio Grande down in the Lower Valley and eating in the restaurants in Reynosa or Matamoros or Piedras Negras. But those border towns have grown so much that I can’t get around in them now. Last time I went across to Reynosa I couldn’t even find Rudy Villareal’s restaurant where I used to eat white-winged dove cooked in wine sauce. (And have a tequila sour that cost 40 cents.) So I just don’t cross the river anymore.

Moving along, here’s a note from up in the Panhandle:

Any time we get close to Amarillo we go see my partner’s cousin, Soeurette Cowan, and her husband, Bob. They live in town but have what I guess you’d call a summer home on the lip of Palo Duro Canyon, near the city of Canyon south of Amarillo. I’ve finally learned how to spell Soeurette’s name. It means Little Sister in French.

Few weeks ago, driving on the road that leads to their canyon place, she stopped to watch a mountain lion standing out in the brush, pretty close to her car. It stood there quite a while, looking back at her. Then it began walking slowly, parallel to the road, and Soeurette rolled along with it until it disappeared in the timber.

Since then several other people have seen this lion, and have taken some pretty fair pictures of it. Apparently it’s a mama lion because two cubs have been seen in this same neighborhood.

Palo Duro Canyon is a sweet place for a mountain lion (cougar, puma, panther, same animal). The canyon has lots of wildlife to attract lions. Horses, too. Several years ago the Cowans lost a horse to a lion.

I’ve been trying for 25 years to see a cougar running free in this state. I know they’re here, and I’m convinced they never left. Last week when we were at Palo Duro, Bob Cowan gave me a tour of the area where the lion is raising cubs. Late, after sundown.

Once I saw something moving inside a brushy area and it was the right color. But it was a horse when it came out of the brush.

We have all manner of connections in Amarillo. When we get there I always check on the state of David Horsley’s health. Lot of people in our city will remember David when he was a hospital chaplain in Houston.

I forget why he and his wife, Michele, moved to Amarillo but I remember thinking it was too far away. Years ago David agreed to preach my funeral. He’ll now have a long way to travel for the preaching and according to our agreement I have to pay for his expenses.

Reason I’m interested in his health, I don’t want him dying before I do. But he’s way younger than I am, and has none of my bad habits as far as I know.

Then here’s a note I took in the city of Mansfield, which I never heard of until my sister moved there not long ago. Mansfield is south of and between Fort Worth and Dallas.

I once wrote in a book that this sister played the first piano she ever saw, that she stood flat-footed, reached up to the keyboard and played Jesus Loves Me. Several people challenged that statement but I remember seeing her do that so it must be true.

On the 15th of this month she had her 91st birthday. When we stopped to see her in Mansfield I asked if she could still play, and if so I would love to hear her one more time. She said sure she could still play, but the piano was in the back room and that was too far to walk.

70 Responses

I was told a long time ago, by someone who was nearly as old then as I am now, that you should never go back to places that you loved on your first visit years before, as you will be disappointed at the changes that have taken place. I suppose wanting places and people to remain unchanged is a form of selfishness. Another is wanting reasonably simple access to some beatiful spot but hoping no one else will be there – a failing to which I must confess.

An unfilled ambition is to see a cougar in the wild, although I doubt I ever will now. They are magnificent animals.

Mr. Hale, I agree with your comments about places that you love changing as they grow. My home town of El Paso is such a place. I used to picture myself retiring there, but that is slowly going by the wayside as time passes. Many of the places I knew growing up are gone, those that remain have changed so much they are unrecognizable, and the whole spirit of the city is different, and not necessarily for the better. But, to me, it’s s till home and always will be.

I’m eyeing southern New Mexico as a place to retire now. The northern part of the state got too artsy / touristy for me.

Yes, Santa Fe has changed, and not for the better. I still like the town but getting around the place is difficult. Our first two trips there, we were ablr to park right near the square and walk around to our hearts content. Now,as the song went, they paved part of our paradise and put in parking lots. We still stay at the Del Rey, paying a reasonable price and we still have a wonderful evening at Vanessie but the rest is just GONE. I do love the approach to Amarillo in the evening from the West, as you can see it in the far, far distance. Now THATS flat country. And from the East, coming off the bsin in the early morning, with the rising sun behind you accenting the shoreline of the ancient sea that was there before the water trickled back to where it is now. Magnificent! I do love that drive.

My old home town has changed dramatically since I left it some 45 years ago. It didn’t change much until it was hit by a tornado in the 70′s and all the old buildings that lined main street were damaged or destroyed. All of those great old buildings, formerly saloon turned dry goods store turned laundromat were all torn down, and the population raved about how that tornado had finally forced the town to clean itself up some. But most of those old buildings were never replaced and so now main street looks like an old woman with a gap toothed smile. Many of the old houses that had housed two or three generations have been replaced by mobile homes. It seems that there are no young people there anymore, playing in the streets, no teenagers parked at the old cafe and gathered on the sidewalk to see and be seen. The spirit of that little West Texas town was whisked away on the backs of it’s young people who moved away to find a different lifestyle. I was one of them. Now I think that what I was so anxious to leave back then was so much better in so many ways than what I found. I wish that I could have raised my children there. I’m sorry that they missed out on life in a rural community where everyone knew you and cared about you and would tell your Mama on you if they caught you misbehaving. Maybe if some of us had stayed, the little town might still have some warm breath left in it.

My family moved to Houston in the middle 30′s and we lived in various areas of town through the years. In the early 50′s I left never to return until recently when I made a reminising tour of the old neighoods and haunts. The disappointment was beyond belief as nothing existed as I knew it. So now, all of us old codgers can sit in our rockers and say,

“remember when we could go to the Iris Theater and penny arcade for a dime, remember Madings Drug Stores, the old Horlock Ice Houses, remember this or that, etc, etc. It is Houston’s history that only a few of us can fondly recall.

My wife has a failing along those lines: She somehow thinks everything should be priced the way it was twenty years ago, and when she finds the prices higher, she thinks it is a ripoff that she will avoid. Me, I’m philosophical about prices. I hope they keep up with the times so that the quality does not go downhill.

Yep, the Tastee Freeze is now an antique (junk) shop that is closed. Our local grocery is now run by a son of Islam who does not restock with anything useful, and a Dollar store has come to town. It doesn’t matter much, the First and Second Baptist church have built themselves up to where they take up most of the town anyway…

Unlike you Mr. Leon, I was fortunate enough to see a mountain lion. It was early one morning while driving through the Bailey’s Prairie area. That’s down near Angleton. That big old cat, from tip of nose to tip of tail, was nearly as long as the traffic lane was wide.

Jim in SR, you reminded me of my mother when you said your wife thinks prices should be the way they were decades ago. She could not walk by an item w/o saying what it cost back in the 1930′s. She deeply resented the increase and did not appreciate it a bit when I mentioned inflation or how much longer they might have worked to earn the money. Now I find myself doing the same thing. Grr#!**@#!

My sister and her husband, a former deputy sheriff, were walking back to their truck at dusk after exploring a park far out in west Texas. He said nothing he ran into as a lawman raised the hairs on the back of his neck as when they heard the growl of a mountain lion above and behind them. Both were unarmed at the time.

Chuck Rogers has just made the only favorable comment known to humankind about Sheppard Air Force Base. (Full disclosure: I suffered basic training in that awful place in ’43 when it was run by the old Army Air Corps.)

I was raised in rural Washington County. I remember many people getting excited because Brenham was getting a This or a That. Many still get excited by new This and Thats, but many wish all the growth would come to a halt. I don’t blame them. Subdivisions are popping up all over the county. Most of the local merchants are long gone, replaced by those This & Thats. Property crime, especially in rural areas, is higher than many years ago. Brenham is still a friendly place but not as much so as in the past.

On the other side of the coin are all those small towns that have dried up. Some can hardly maintain a school system. Many churches now have to share a pastor with a neighboring town. People have to drive 20 miles to buy a 2X4.

I’m happy to see postings by others that love the Panhandle and High Plains. There are many interesting places and wonderful sights if you know what roads to take and the time of the day to drive them. The roads are uncrowded. There aren’t a lot of people but the ones there seem very nice. Now if they would just learn that a 12 oz can of coffee should make 20-25 cups rather than 60-80, it would be hard to beat!

Ray-O: My sister’s boyfriend and I wanted to see what we could attract with some varment calls. We parked Dad’s P/U in short grass near the once steep bank of the Brazos. Below the bank was a thicket of trees, brush, briars, iron weeds and vines. We started calling and immediately we were answered by something we never herd before. It came from an area just below the bank. We got off the hood and sat in the front seat, loaded guns in hand, with the doors open. After the second answer from below, we left! Two days later two guys reported seeing a cougar and tracks were seen along the Brazos near where we were that night. We never saw anything but likley would have wrecked Dad’s P/U if we had.

Change is inevitable, but not always for the worse. Take Las Vegas for instance. It just keeps getting bigger and better and more glitzy and decadent all the time in its effort to hold on to its title as America’s Playground. The hotels are no longer just large, boring buildings with hundreds or even thousands of bedrooms, but now everything is based on a theme: the skyline of New York; the Circus; the Egyptian Pyramids; Camelot and King Arthur’s Court; Paris and the Eiffel Tower; and every one with a swimming pool the size of the Adriatic Sea. Some even have carnival rides on top of the buildings. How can it get any better???? Well, for one thing, I hear that the next wave of themes will not be based on places, but instead upon notable events in history. I hear there will be a hotel called Hurricane Katrina; others based on The Last Supper, the Civil War, the Inauguration of Barak H. Obama, the Battle of Little Big Horn, and the Holocaust. I cannot think of Las Vegas without fondly remembering the time my friend Bubba from East Texas drove into Vegas in a $7,000,00 second-hand Cadillac, and twenty-four hours later left town in a $125,000.00 Greyhound Bus. What a great place!!!!!!!

Leon, I had basic training at Sheppard Air Force Base in 1950 and don’t remember it being so bad. (But I don’t remember a lot of things now.) Maybe it wasn’t so bad for me because I had lived in Ballinger and Midland the prior eighteen years. I thought I was still in God’s country.

The unsettling reality that places you’ve lived in change over time is what I always thought was the basis for the quote, “You can never go home.” My interpretation was validated when Thomas Wolfe wrote a book with that title, in which the theme is that just as I thought – namely, you can physically return to your home, but it will never be the same as it was when you left. It’s a sad thought perhaps, but Maya Angelou added to the phrase and wrote, ” You can never go home again, but the truth is you can never leave home, so it’s all right.” I’ve taken her quote to heart and it makes me feel better when I visit my hometown and hardly recognize it.

Tell me about changes taking place in a town over time! I was born in Detroit, Michigan. Recently, I took an Internet trip via Google Maps and rediscovered my birth-home. Must be over a hundred years old now but there it was. It’s got new yellow vinyl siding and concrete steps instead of wood but sadly, the houses across the street and next door have disappeared and most of the street trees are gone. Gone, too, are both of the large cherry trees from the backyard that yielded delicious fruit for all our family and friends. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t miss the city at all but I hate to see what it’s become. A singular gift of immense worth was my folks moving to Houston about 1938, making me a Texan by choice. Bless them for taking what was a tremendous chance, moving into — at the time –the unknown southwest. Lots of my childhood friends could have but didn’t. Look at what’s left of them today.

I, too, have found disappointment in returning to favorite places. But, guess what? That forces you to find new places and start the same process over again. Please believe me — there are wonderful, out-of-the-way sites all across Texas and the U.S. that are just waiting for people to discover.

I went to Sheppard Air force base in 1972, coming and going to New Mexico, as a Boy Scout. They let us spend the night in a gym. Some of the older scouts ventured out and got beer from the service men and bragged about it. Me, I just went to sleep.

On the return trip, in the morning, eating breakfast with the troop in the cafeteria, an airman sat at our table and was acting very strange. Very strange. I think he was having a bad drug experience or something, don’t know, but the MP’s took him away. I hope he was okay. I’ll never know.

This if off the topic of mountain lion and going back to the same place again…just wanted you to know we’re heading up to Fredericksburg tomorrow and I will think of you when I pass by the lookout at the Devil’s Backbone. Place is fascinating, that such a place exists in this part of the state. We spent a few days in Canyon the first of August, touring Palo Duro Canyon on the Park Road. Last year we took a Jeep tour from the Elkins Ranch and saw areas that those in the park don’t see. That was looking from the top down, this year it was looking from the bottom up. Quite a difference.

Glad you’re back from the high country that plays havoc with your blood pressure.

To Leon – I felt the same way this past couple of weeks in Austin area…my dad lived there from about 1964 till 1985. We went often as our daughter was growing up and her grandpa was the joy of her life. Now as I see how it was in my memory and how it actually is …I can’t believe it…it looks almost like a Houston, Jr. in someways.

To Joseph (Jay) we were doing the same thing…since we were on vacation for the last 10 days we threw all discipline to the wind and stayed up till 1 and 2 am each morning…we flipped the TV on after being out for the evening (Lake Travis area) and lo and behold the Houston game was on AFTER midnite…and what a game. Then UT took Tech last week while we were in Austin and then they smacked UTEP yesterday…

To Jay – thanks for the suggestion…Ze Tejas is fantastic and we will go again whenever in Austin.

Leon, here I am in Santa Fe after a wonderful supper/broadway musical presentation at the Casa Sena Cantina (the music from Broadway is in the cantina, not the Casa Sena Resturant) and thinking of you and the partner. I’m sorry your Santa Fe trip turned out so dismal.

Living in the Panhandle I make it to Palo Duro Canyon once or twice a year. I’ve never seen any of your mountain lions, but sighting rumors continue a half dozen times a year.

My lion experience came from a game park in Tanzania. We were in a Landrover and saw a pride of lions, 3 lionesses and about a dozen young kittens. We were able to drive up very close to them, but they can really hide, they settled down into the two foot high grass to where you could just barely see their heads and eyes. I really wanted a good picture of the pride and I made a growling sound out of the window. The 3 lionesses

came up together in full attack mode growling and running at the Landrover. If there had not been a deep gully between us, I’m not sure they would not have attacked the vehicle. After I got over my shock and my color returned, I was able to get some great pictures, but I learned you NEVER growl at a lion!

Just a reminder for those once in a lifetime moments, your cell phone probably has a camera. It might not be the best quality picture, but it can be a real memory saver.

I can so relate to the change thing !Moe and I moved back to Tripoli, Libya in 1990 . I got lost as soon as we left the air port . A whole forest had been chopped down to make way for a free way .

It’s the same for Houston . I haven’t been back since 1990 but try to stay in the loop so to say , by watching the news and reading the newspapers there in Houston.

Our oldest daughter moved back to Houston 4 years ago and I go on Google maps once in a while to try to find places she talks about or to see places we loved there . I get lost after I move the curser ! Houston is so big now. I don’t think I would be able to drive around if I ever got back home .

Our other daughter lives in a small town south of the Tenn. and Georgia boarder.She said late one night coming home from her in laws , they came across a cougar in the middle of the road . They just stopped to stare at it until it went back into the woods .

Well my childbride (64) wants to see the Smokey Mountains, Gatlinburg etc. so I guess we’ll be loading up the truck camper. After our last trip to the Florida Keys we said that that was our last out of state road trip…….I guess she’s gorgotten about the traffic and monotony of the interstate highways.

It is a real shame that when one is finally ready to decide where to live in retirement, that your decision has to be base on these factors: #1= I need to live by a good medical center because I’m old! #2 I need to live where I can get a part-time job because I’m almost broke! #3 I have to live near my kids because they both have to work to make end’s meet and I’m the unpaid baby-sitter. #4 My eyesight and reflexes are not what they used to be and I need a good bus system in some city. IN OTHER WORDS, The real shame is that most of us cannot afford retirement, mentally or physically. Jack in Aspen

My home town is Houston. Talk about change! We moved about 10 miles north of downtown (!) Hempstead and except for the nice rolling hills vs the flat Houston landscape, it looks and feels more like the hometown of my memory. I guess you can go home again if you can find it in another place.

Debbie Lee made my day. It’s not often I get thanks for a recommendation out here on the ranch. As to staying or leaving the hometown, I was one who decided to return after only short stays away. I don’t regret it, but I’ve just about had to take a vow of poverty to stay. That’s likely the reason others have left their small home towns. Perhaps this new information age will unleash new possibilities to be able to afford to live where you want to live.

Wow how exciting to hear you mention Piedras Negras. I was in Carrizo Springs this weekend. Took my 70 year old mother and her 82 year old sister to Eagle Pass. Only I wouldn’t call them old…they had just as much energy as my 48 year old body. My mother and I have our passports but Leon sad to say with all the crime we were too scared to cross the border. We live in a world that….it will never be the same and why would you want it to. When I was a little girl everything was so BIG…now I’m older and will it’s so small. That bag of Lays there’s never enough chips and the price is way higher. Eagle Pass has grown so much that I had to ask for directions. They even have a Whataburger…can’t go wrong at Whataburger…it’s always the same delicious!! Made it back home to Carrizo and at exactly 6pm (deer feeding time) must of been at least 20+ deer. At about midnight walked outside and I could see the big & the small dipper and I’m sure if I waited a little while I may have even caught a falling star. Houston has been my home for 28 years now, but I have to say there is no place like the hill country!!

You’re right about cities changing, and not always for the better. South Main in Houston was once the entertainment and restaurant center of Houston. Shamrock hotel, Sonny Looks, Gaido’s seafood, Rice Stadium, Colt ’45 stadium and Prince’s hamburgers. Last time I took a cruise down South Main, I was hungry. The only place I could find something to eat was at a chicken joint, way up on South Main.

Jack in Aspen: Four other factors that must be considered where to live in retirement: #1, where your wife wants to live. #2, ditto, #3, ditto and #4, ditto. Fortunately, I also enjoy living here and we are close to Dallas and many medical centers.

Joseph (Jay), I am completely jealous that you got to see the UH/Tech game in person. Man, what a 4Q. But I probably would have melted in that humidity, judging by the way folks looked. Lived on campus a long time ago when it was called Jeppeson Stadium. Big-time football in a stadium without giant screens in it, or giant anything. Would be so grand.

Back on topic – I think Marie touched on this, but what always got me was how much everything had SHRUNK when I when revisiting things from childhood one time. Not a fault of my memory, you understand. Smile.

Sydney Hamed Posted: “I don’t think I would be able to drive around if I ever got back home.”

It’s a piece of cake! First, forget any English you know. Next, get one of those cell phones with all the latest programs. Cancel any car insurance you might have. Bring along those bills that need to be paid this week. Stop at the nearest Starbucks and get a cup of coffee. Go next door for a couple of breakfast tacos. Get back behind the wheel. (If you back into another car, just keep on going. You wouldn’t want to hold the driver up exchanging information.) Once back on the freeway, start texting while unwraping your tacos (careful, they’re hot) and drinking your coffee. Now that you have gotten some coffee into your system, get out those bills and start paying them on-line, using that new cell phone. If your new phone has you confused, pull up the directions on line. Pay no attention to speed zones (they’re just suggestions anyway).

Do this in rush hour traffic. That way there are hundreds of drivers on the road honking, screaming and making gestures at you. This will help keep you in your lane. If you get off the freeway and onto a side street, go for one with heavy traffic. As you sit through the second red light, pay no attention to the line of drivers behind you honking and cursing. Those bills are due! Pay no attention to those school zones and crosswalks. Slow down, and the gal texting while putting on make-up drivin that BMW behind you will slam into you, scaring the begebers out of those poor little school kids.

Jack-in-Aspen: The decision on where I would live when I retired was postponed by a few years because my wife continued to work for a while. Then it was made based on the fact that we have spent years getting our house just the way we want it. Now it’s based on lethargy. We have lived here for 25 years and don’t expect to move, ever.

I would be willing to move to Sn Diego to be near our daughter and granddaughters, but there is no uninamity on the issue, so we stay where we are.

We learn more about ell every day. Now we know he is ‘an old man with …..issues.’

WOW! The last time I was in Porter (I used to fish at a place below the bridge), there was just a restaurant/bar that served BBQ and fried rabbit, a little box house that sold gasoline and a couple of real estate offices! That rabbit was done to a tee….yum!! ;o)

Late one cool autumn evening I was out with my girlfriend Honey Jean on a picnic at a state park, lying on a blanket and serenely gazing up at the moon and stars. I was desperately trying to think of something seductive to say to her. I told her we could make some beautiful music together but she said that what she wanted was a bassoon and all I was equipped with was a piccolo. Grrr. OK, time for Plan B. The evening star, Venus, (yeah, I know it’s a planet) was visible just over the trees and this inspired me. I pointed it out to her and softly sang (to the tune of Doug Clark and the Hot Nuts’ Roll Your Leg Over):

If all the young girls

Were like statues of Venus

Then I’d be equipped

With a rock-drilling p…

She interrupted me before I could finish and said, “That was so romantic. You’re a regular flippin’ poet.” Then she whacked me over the head with a tree limb. I’d never seen so many stars before.

Diana Gloria, there aren’t many people around that know about Carrizo Springs. My ancestors came from there. One, a respected Texas Ranger, was remembered a few years ago with a rededication of his cemetery headstone. Perhaps Judy Oakes knows of the family from whence this Ranger sprang, as her town of Columbus is located on their old Austin Colony landgrant, and is so commemorated on their courthouse square. A glance at a Texas map would show Carrizo Springs as lying on a straight line west from Columbus. No doubt a simple enough reason to move on.

Leon, I hope that you outlive your preacher friend. I think that is God’s gift to us, to outlive the one who told us that we have to behave ourselves if we want to live a long life. Especially when they are younger than we are.

Mr. Hale, next time you travel to the valley.. if you want to cross the border try nuevo progreso…you can park on this side, very short walk to the pay booth, then just walk across the covered bridge, all the stores are right there as soon as you set foot in mexico..this international bridge is a few miles south of weslaco…but don’t tell anybody, it’s already pretty crowded down there

Well now Jay, I would bet the farm that the Texas Ranger of whom who wrote would have not been popular up the road at Crystal City. A silly political party nearly killed that little town back in the 70′s. Is it still on life-support?

Mr. Hale, I hope there isn’t any funeral in your immediate future, especially yours. But let me tall you about my Great Uncle Freddie Mac. He was a polite, courtly man with charming manners. He never married but had girlfriends in every corner of the globe. Everybody liked him, even his parole officers. He was a con man par excellence. He always had the most interesting stories to tell at family gatherings and I listened with rapt attention. He claimed that legends like Titanic Thompson and Nick the Greek learned most of their scams from him. I think my trying to emulate him is the reason I so enjoyed telling whoppers to Honey Jean. When I filed past his casket at the funeral, I half expected him to wink at me, just to let me know that the fix was in and he’d figured out how to get into Heaven anyway.

The thing that has changed the most about my memories of places and things is that I can no longer wander and roam with wild abandon. Sure structures and neighborhoods, downtowns, zoos, and museums have changed…but it’s the ability to just roam and not have a thought in the world but what’s up ahead in the field, stream, the corner, etc. I wouldn’t even walk to the nearest Stop and Go (which is just outside the neighborhood) without my walking stick and my cell phone. That’s the biggest and saddest loss for me. But I do remember re-visiting my fourth grade teacher and thinking how petite she was and how small the desks were. It always bothered me that I never allowed my own child to just wander. I kept her in my vision. I did send her to summer camp and I hope that was enough to cover what I wouldn’t allow her to do. But I’m thinking it isn’t the same.

I’d like to make a comment on a previous subject: hitting. It’s pretty strange to think back to the days when a school yard fight was not such a big controversy. Nor was it unusual to hear of a bar room brawl and just who was involved. The usual suspects. But the hitting aspect has always bothered me. Just where does the idea that a whack will correct a perceived problem come from?

I dunno and I don’t want to know. But this I do know: the hitter has a problem and the further I can stay from them the better. This I learned from personal experience and hope that my little words of wisdom can affect someone enduring something that has no place in a civilized world. Thank you.

God willing and the creek don’t rise (too much), I’m hoping to visit Californa in October. Anyone, any suggestions on what a old lady and her daughter should visit…beside the Women’s Conference in L.A.?

One more thing…come home O.C…I’d hate to think we’ve lost one of the flock albeit a black sheep…just kidding about the last remark. Hurry back.

Jack in Aspen summed up my life – but in Angleton I am near my beloved ocean and near enough to possible work (if you consider sitting at a computer work) – we bought a brick duplex and rent half of it out (big help) near enough to medical. Our hope is our kids will be able to survive without out us by the time we die (if they hit the lottery and every one remains disease free)——-beer helps, 2 a day every day.

Our freezer is full of fish from a great summer of free diving in mother ocean – no hurricane this year – no one is sick – 2009 life is good so far – wonder if Israel will attack Iran?…….

As was mentioned, I have only one more day on my vow of silence. But I will be out of the country for several days after the first, so it may appear I have given up on the whole idea. Actually, I’m hoping I may be out of the habit and will be forever free of the urge. We will see in the coming weeks how this pans out.

Sandra, I think the hitting goes back to the days of slavery when the masters thought it showed how powerful ole massa was. But when they beat them so hard on the back they couldn’t make it to the field to work what had been accomplished? I think the same idea applies to children who are beaten, what has been accomplished?

We don’t actually live in Columbus. I had an antique shop there in the old Orphic Theatre building. I’ll make you a deal if you are interested. Still filled up. I keep thinking I might re-open…then decide not to.

Nesbitt Library has quite a bit of info and I found this site if it pertains to your Texas Ranger relative. Interesting anyway.

I live on the Lamar peninsula between Goose Island State park and Aransas Wildlife Refuge. Some months ago my yorkie was playing in the yard with me, chasing rabbits actually, when she suddenly started barking and ran to the side yard, I followed in time to see her chasing a cougar out of the yard. It was huge. So there we were, a yorkie chasing a cougar and an old lady chasing her yorkie. The cougar was leaping at least 6 feet high in huge bounds to get away from the dog.